Wahine make Hawaii 2-for-2 in Aggie routs

First, it was Hawaii's football team and then it was the Jamie Houston-led volleyball team. The No. 16 Rainbow Wahine fed off the Warriors' rout earlier in the day to turn in one of their own last night, sweeping Utah State in 77 minutes 30-17, 30-18, 30-24.

A season-high crowd of 1,332 at the Dee Glenn Smith Spectrum saw Houston follow up one of her worst performances of her career with one of her best. The sophomore left-side hitter, who had 11 hitting errors in Thursday's win at Nevada, had no errors last night, putting down 13 of her 25 attempts to hit .520.

The victory kept Hawaii in a first-place tie with No. 23 New Mexico State (28-1, 11-1) in the Western Athletic Conference standings. The Wahine will host Louisiana Tech on Friday before taking on the Aggies next Sunday in a match that likely will determine the WAC title.

"Jamie had a fantastic night," Wahine coach Dave Shoji said. "She turned everything around from Thursday. She played really smart, had really good judgment.

"She knows she made mistakes. The only thing that we did was remind her when to go hard and went to back off. She was determined not to have any hitting errors tonight."

Hawaii took huge leads in all three games. The Wahine led by as much as 27-15 in Game 1; opened Game 2 with an 11-1 run that included five kills by Houston before expanding the lead to 21-7; and used a 5-0 spurt in Game 3 for a 19-10 margin.

Shoji was able to clear his bench late in Game 3, using both freshman defensive specialist Rayna Kitaguchi, making her first road trip, and junior middle Caroline Blood. Blood kept her hitting average perfect at 1.000, putting down her fifth kill of the season on five attempts when giving the Wahine their first aloha ball at 29-24.

"I thought we played pretty steady," Shoji said. "We had a couple of lapses, got a little sloppy, but we got so far ahead that sometimes it's hard to keep that going."

The volleyball team went to the UH-Utah State football game prior to the match. The Wahine stayed through the first half, leaving with the Warriors ahead 28-3.

"It really fired our players up," Shoji said. "They were inspired by how well the football team played."

Houston had a double-double, adding 10 digs as well as two aces and three blocks. Junior middle Juliana Sanders had eight kills, hitting .636, and was in on six blocks, while junior middle Kari Gregory had six kills to go with five blocks.

Senior setter Kanoe Kamana'o had three of the team's six aces in addition to 36 assists.

Amanda Nielson had 17 kills to lead the Aggies.

Hawaii was scheduled to return home today and take tomorrow off before preparing for the final two regular-season home matches of the year. Sunday's match against New Mexico State is also senior night for Kamana'o, Mason and Cayley Thurlby.